Coloring photos

There are 2 ways to color a black and white photo.  The first and traditional method is using transparent oil paint.  Of course this has extra expense to deal with.  The second is to use photo editing software and color in the areas that you have selected. 

The first way is to take and print out a black and white photograph, apply a thick layer of photo prep spray, then use just a tiny bit of color on a Q-tip and apply the color in thin layers very carefully not to press too hard. If you press too hard, it will mess up the layer of spray that was applied, and then the paint won't stick.  Although this is the traditional method, it takes too long to prep, apply, and dry.

So onto the second method.

The second method is much simpler.  I use GIMP software, it is a freeware photo editing program that is very similar to Adobe Photoshop.  It has all of the filters and editing tools, I will be working with another photographer, and we are going to compare the software, and see if there is any discernable difference between the software.  I basically converted the photo to grayscale and saved it as a new file.  Once that was done, then I changed the new file to RGB and it stayed black and white, but whatever color I used showed up.  Then using the spray painting tool with very low opacity, I started adding thin layers of color to selected areas.  The trick is to use color minimally.  If you get too carried away, you may as well just have left the picture colored.

Colorizing comes in handy when the photo is too dark and lightening the photo causes strange pixelation.  By using the spray painting tool it's easy to retouch, colorize, and smooth out the pixels.